Priority

[Juker]

I saw a video saying that priority essentially doesn't exist. If two ground moves hit one another, they will clank unless one is 9 or more percent higher than the other. And that what seems like priority with air moves, is really just spacing, timing, hit boxes, and how many hitboxes the move has. So if two moves collide, and one has two hitboxes, one after the other, and the other has only one, the first two hitboxes will cancel each other out, and the remaining hitbox will connect with a hurtbox.

Is all of this true? Certain moves still seem to "beat" other moves in the air regardless of timing and position. There are moves like Link's nair, or Luigi's nair that always seem to "win".

 

[CORY]

in the air, what matters is if your hitbox connects with their hurtbox before their hitbox hits your hurtbox.

for example, marth's fair is totally disjointed (for the purpose of this topic. i think he might have a hitbox hovering over his hand). that means he has no hurtboxes anywhere on his sword, it's entirely hitboxes. if a fox tries to nair the sword during a fair, he won't be able to hit the marth.

there's no cancelling of hit/hurtboxes. it's all about how they meet and when.

 

[Planet Piss]

Priority generally has to do with the frames on which a move activates. If a move is slower but bigger, it might win against a faster move so long as it was well-placed, but it doesn't win in terms of priority. Another factor is invincibility, which spacies have in their feet, giving them priority over another move with the same frame activation, say, Fox vs. Link's nair (I don't know if they actually have the same first frames). Marth's fair can beat Fox's nair, but not really in terms of priority.

 

[CORY]

no, marth's fair beats fox's nair entirely in terms of priority. marth's sword cannot be hurt and you can't clank it. fox's feet can be hurt during nair (you're probably thinking of his usmash, which has invincibility frames on his legs for part of it). if you can hit marth's hurtbox, but he can hit yours, you're losing to priority. which isn't even a "real thing", it's just the simplest way to describe how hitboxes interacting with one another work.

 

[Bazkip]

More or less what you said, with
@ CORY 's correction

For all the info, see http://www.ssbwiki.com/Priority